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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6200307" data-attributes="member: 42582">This is a first for me - being accused of being an edition warrior against 4e!I am a very strong proponent of the merits of 4e, and have posted many actual play threads showing what I'm doing in my 4e game. But I do not think the game is flawless either in mechanics or in rules text.I regard it as a very great strength of 4e that it presents its rules as rules and not as guidelines (Essentials pulls back a bit from this, in my view to its detriment). I think 4e's action resolution rules do a good job of delivering well-paced gonzo high fantasy adventure. (Combat is tighter than skill challenges, but they are far from hopeless.)But I do not think the 4e DMG gives a very good discussion of how to frame combats from the story point of view (eg theamtic heft of different opponents; thematic heft of powers; using opponents + powers + terrain to set thematically weighty stakes; etc). Worlds & Monsters is a lot better than the DMG in this respect. The only time the DMG really goes in for the sort of discussion you get in W&M is in the page on languages; and the Monster Manual is all written from the in-game point of view rather than in the out-of-game terms in which frank GM advice needs to be given.The DMG 2 is a different kettle of fish. It has strengths, but also disappointments. In particular, Robin Laws has just cut and pasted a lot of his text from HeroQuest revised without adapting to reflect the quite different mechanical framework of 4e.I personally have found that the single best DMG's advice book for running 4e is Luke Crane's Adventure Burner for Burning Wheel. HeroWars/Quest, Maelstrom Storytelling and WotC's own Worlds and Monsters have also been helpful. The best parts of the DMG are its advice on tactical considerations in combat encounters, its advice on using powers to affect objects (because this is the ony text which really makes clear how important keywords are for linking mechanics to fiction), its skill challenge advice, and obviously all the mechanical machinery stuff around p 42, building monsters & traps, allocating treasure and XP, etc. The best bits of the DMG 2, for me, were more on traps, more on combat encounter design (especially circular paths), and its stuff on skill challenges.Hopefully this gives you a better idea of what motivated my comment, and what I had in mind.</blockquote>

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